The 1 Number That Might Derail The Housing Recovery

Coming out of the housing crisis, hundreds of thousands of
homes could have been bought on the cheap. And some of the
world's largest investors did just that.

For example, we noted earlier thisyear that the
Blackstone Group (
BX
)
spent roughly $100 million per week buying distressed real estate
in 2012. Another company,
American Homes 4 Rent (
AMH
)
, was formed in 2012 with the sole purpose of buying up cheap
properties. The fact the company pulled off an IPO roughly a year
after its founding tells you how hot the trend became.

And the timing was surely good. Fast-rising home prices have
already made the moves look quite savvy. According to the
Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home priceindex , home
prices rose 12% in July from a year earlier. In markets where
firms like Blackstone were especially active,(such as Las Vegas,
Phoenix and Los Angeles) year-over-year gains range from 19% to
27%.

There is cause and effect supporting this dynamic. The
vigorous demand for cheap real estate helped take many homes off
the market, creating enough scarcity to lift prices. But
considering these investment firms now own tens (or hundreds) of
thousands of homes, it has a pair of negative implications.

First, they are unlikely to be as aggressive in terms of
purchases, now that the bottom-fishing process is in complete.
Second, they are sitting on such solid profits in many markets
that they are likely to start looking to unload some that built
up housing inventory. We may already be seeing the impact,
according to Goldman Sachs.

"The softness in the latest housing activity data has added to
concerns that the housing recovery in 2012 was entirely driven by
low interest rates and institutional investors," noted Goldman's
analysts.

What are these institutions doing now?
Oaktree Capital (
OAK
)
, is already looking tocash in on its housing portfolio, and
other institutional investors may soon follow suit.

Make no mistake: The housing market is healthy and likely to
stay that way. Sales of existing homes rose 7% in the past three
months, compared with a year earlier. And Goldman's analysts
remain generally bullish on housing.

Yet here's another stat top digest: Sales of new homes slid 2%
this summer, which indicates that the real action is among
existing homes. Blackstone and other institutional investors
(besides Oaktree) haven't talked about their pivot from buying to
selling, but such a move appears inevitable in light of higher
real estate prices and still-affordable mortgages.

This move to unleash tens of thousands of homes back onto the
market in coming quarters and years spells real trouble for
homebuilders. New homes are typically more expensive than
existing homes, which is a real challenge for a millennial
generation that is saddled with a hefty amount of school debt.
They'll still be buying homes, but if the recent housing stats
hold up, they'll be buying lower-priced existing homes, and not
pricier newly built homes.

The Market Reaction
This backdrop should give you pause as you are tempted to load up
on homebuilding stocks. They've pulled back from their recent
peaks but are still trading well above tangible book value (the
total value of real estate they own and unsold homes in the
building process).

Source: Company reports

Are these companies poised for solid growth in the year ahead,
now that the recent new home sales figures are starting to
weaken? Well, as far as Wall Street analysts are concerned, the
year ahead is expected to be very strong for these homebuilders,
as revenues are expected to rise 15% to 40%.

Source: Yahoo Finance

It appears as if the recent slowdown in new home sales has not
yet been incorporated into their forecasts. Of course, some of
the projected revenue gains will be coming not just from volume
but from firmer pricing, as has been the case for the past year.
But the S&P/Case-Shiller housing report should dampen that
view as well. Home prices rose 0.6% sequentially in July (on a
seasonally adjusted basis), compared with 0.9% in June and 1% in
May.

Risks to Consider:
As an upside risk, a much firmer U.S. economy would embolden
many on-the-fence homebuyers to buy new homes, though recent
signs point to another year of tepid economic growth in
2014.

Action to Take -->
The Blackstone Group will be holding its quarterly conference
call on Oct. 17. This call could mark the first time the company
articulates its home sales strategy, after several years of being
an active homebuyer. If you are tempted to load up on shares of
homebuilder stocks after the recent pullback, you may want to
wait until analysts have lowered the bar for 2014 growth
forecasts, which looks too high right now.